


My Skin Is Theirs

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Saucy Cadet Photographs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 08:43:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9483398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: Apparently, Lieutenant Mitaka hasquitethe collection of saucy softcore Cadet Hux pictures.Apparently, Kylo Ren thinks this is entirely inappropriate in men of their standing.Apparently, General Hux has anidea.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenstardust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenstardust/gifts).



> So, the other day I happened across [a piece of fanart by the ineffable @queenstardust](http://queenstardust.tumblr.com/post/156227086806/today-in-pictures-that-general-hux-would-rather), in which it appears Hux once had some rather...interesting...photographs taken of himself, when he was but a young cadet. My mind latched onto the idea and would not let it go. And so, I ended with with 10 _freaking_ k of entirely indulgent words on the subject. I can't even be sure that it holds up as a story, but I just couldn't resist the mental images, okay. _They haunt me_.
> 
> The title comes from the Filter song _Take A Picture_ , though whenever I listen to said song I always go for [the Hybrid remix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTquFxr2OiI) over the original. I listened to it way too many times while writing this.
> 
> As always, feel free to come chat over on [tumblr](http://claricechiarasorcha.tumblr.com)! I need to write more...
> 
> ETA: I've been fortunate enough that two lovely friends of mine have offered up their own visions of Hux going about his photographi adventures; @schaudwen did [this gorgeous watercolour](http://schaudwenart.tumblr.com/post/157038788862/you-can-keep-that-one-when-kylo-confronts) of the general and his greatcoat, and then @noxogoth [also caught on to the fact that soft lighting, the curve of a spine, and THAT BLOODY GREATCOAT](https://noxogoth.tumblr.com/post/157035021720/my-warm-up-pic-today-is-inspired-by-the-wonderful) make for magic in my mind. You guys are beyond awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. <3

There did at least seem to be a theme, of sorts: many of the pictures focused on his legs, long and pale and slender as reeds, but with obvious strength in them besides. Of the considerable number, in only one of them was he completely naked – though, as with all the others, it remained tasteful in the sense that the most private parts were masked by clever angle and placement of limb. But in this, the last of them, Ren found he could not look away: the young man reclined back on a narrow regulation cot, one hand behind his head in slovenly disregard. One bent knee propped up to obscure the welcome curve of his hips, while the other laid open to the side; his face was in turn all but masked by the book he held, though the red hair was unmistakable flame above the title.

_Uniform Etiquette: For the Cadet._

“Where did you get these?”

Under the flat words, the lieutenant squirmed; his desperation tasted sour, as bitter as the sweat beginning to seep through the stiff lines of his own well-tended uniform. “It’s a collection, Lord Ren,” he said, perfectly miserable. Though his helmet masked the expression, Ren still curled his lip, let the disdain drip through even the vocal modulator.

“And?”

Somewhat to his credit, the man straightened his spine, met Ren’s faceless glare without once looking away. “And, that means I got it from many different places.”

The temperature of the room took a swift dive, and Ren did not even need to utilise the Force to make it so. “I didn’t realise this was a joke to you.”

“It’s not! I…I just…” Though the lieutenant likely wouldn’t have been the argumentative sort even amongst his own peers, he gave in now with alarming speed; the dark head bowed, his cap crushed almost beyond repair between his clenching hands. “I must be returning to my shift, Lord Ren.”

“Well?” When the man did not move, Ren did not hold back his own snort. “Return to it, then.”

Amazingly, the man looked up, dark eyes too wide – though Ren could not tell whether it was surprise or fear that kept them that way. “But my—”

“I will be keeping these.” With one sweep of his hand across the conference table, the sheets of printed flimsy began to order themselves to one neat pile; the lieutenant’s eyes looked fit to roll clear from his head at the display, even as Ren added with dark satisfaction: “It’s hardly appropriate for an officer of your position to possess such contraband.”

“But it’s _not_ —”

The quick, hard turn of Ren’s head reduced him to silence, again. In many ways, for all the general himself provided argument enough for ten men, his crew itself had never proven to have any real resistance to Ren’s temper or influence. The lieutenant turned away, dejected, and downcast.

Of course, there was was no-one for him to go to; the only person equivalent to Ren’s own influence was not even currently onboard. Some meeting of the upper command had called Hux away to another star destroyer, stationed in a distant quadrant. Ren had actually stirred himself to enquire as to why said meeting had not been convened upon the _Finalizer_ , for all he cared little enough for such matters; it was simply that, given her status as flagship, in seemed only appropriate that Hux should act as ultimate host. But they hadn’t want to move her from high orbit around Starkiller, and Hux had reluctantly left her care to Ren alone.

Not that it mattered. Ren suspected it would be somewhat difficult for Lieutenant Mitaka to complain of the matter to Hux in any case, given the individual who featured in the damned pictures.

And he shouldn’t have looked at them again – the flimsi sheets had ordered themselves to neat stack, by the time the little lieutenant had slipped away. And yet, Ren could not quite internalise what he had seen but moments before, after storming into the room to demand Hux’s aide-de-camp do him some favour he’d already quite forgotten. The man had been holding one of them in hand: a portrait of a young man, seated upon a chair. With one long leg crossed over the other, aristocratic nose pointed high, he’d had the cadet’s cap firm upon the rich red of his hair.

But of course that hadn’t been what had drawn Ren’s sudden attention. Those long legs had been utterly _bare_ , smooth of hair and tilted in such a way that their lines led invitingly back to the apex, for all nothing might be found there. The young man offered but promises instead, his flat stomach held tight, shirt hitched up as if in invitation – as if he merely waited with quick impatience for the viewer to step forward, to pin his arms to his sides and take what was so sharply offered.

Ren should have left it there. But he could not: gloved fingers now thumbed through the collection, found again much of the same. Each still hit him like an individual blow. The subject of the pictures never went beyond the simple accruements of a cadet’s life – there was no silk-draped boudoir, no lacy garments or over-sized pleasure aids. It was enough for the cadet to wrap long fingers over a rifle whose barrel pressed light to lips, or for dark gloves to trace the converging lines of hips, or for his boots to be the only perfectly shining piece of parade uniform upon his saluting body – or for that damned cap to left over his lap as he lay languid upon some distant forgotten officer’s desk.

Ren put them all away, then. There was no matter in thinking of any of it now, not when the general would not return for some time yet. And yet, a brief appearance on the bridge was all it took to awaken the issue again. Ren had little interest in the day to day workings of the ship, and was pleased to find the bridge staff realised the sense of accepting that for what it was. They gave him but the tersest of reports, and Ren had set about leaving when he heard the footsteps begin a slow pace behind him. He kept moving. Only when they had reached the outer corridors did the fool actually dare to speak.

“Lord Ren!”

He turned, sudden and violent; the man almost juddered forward to his knees, stopping far too quick. “Do you really value your life so little?”

And yet he reordered himself with admirable speed – and he stood straight-backed before Ren, very pale and yet entirely determined.

“May I have my property returned?”

“No.”

It should have been enough – lesser words from Kylo Ren had had other officers in something close to frank hysterics. But the man had not moved. A moment of incredulity gave the lieutenant some form of grace, though in truth Ren had known almost from the beginning of their association that the man had a _fascination_ with Hux. It emanated from him in strange heat, always growing only the stronger when Hux paid him some small attention. And the mere existence of such pictures obviously hadn’t helped in curbing his tendencies – but that he would risk _this_ …

“It’s inappropriate,” Ren said, abrupt, harsh. The lieutenant actually _blinked_ , seemingly shocked to find himself still amongst the living.

“What?”

“How is it _decent_ for the Order’s youngest and highest-placed general to be flaunting himself around the fleet like this?”

“Well, it’s not as if _you’ve_ ever cared for basic decency – or for the Order itself.”

For a moment, pure surprise kept him silent. “ _What_ did you say?”

It growled from his vocal modulator, some great beast roused to killing rage. And the lieutenant shrank back, his regret a clear and palpable thing. “I – I didn’t say anything.” Then, too quick by half: “Lord Ren!”

His suspicions burned – but then, for all Ren had heard it clearly enough, given the lieutenant’s basic retiring disposition, he likely _hadn’t_ spoken it aloud. With his temper barely held in check, Ren knew his grip on the Force would have loosened; it was not strictly unusual, for him to pick up on such stray and vehement thoughts.

But even if Mitaka hadn’t _said_ it, he’d obviously _thought_ it. And he fixed his eyes upon him, glare all the more powerful for the fact Mitaka would not even see his face.

“I’ve already put them out the airlock.”

“ _What_?!”

He smiled, voice as lazy as the roll of approaching thunder. “Keep talking, Lieutenant, and you can be reunited with them. Within moments.”

For a moment, the lieutenant only stared. Then, he turned upon his brightly shined heel, and strode quickly away. Ren turned himself, moved in the opposite direction. Hux would not return for at least another six cycles, and it would be dealt with then. He had no need to dwell upon the ridiculous situation again until then.

A mere cycle later, curiosity had bested him. While Ren rarely accessed the intranet aboard the _Finalizer_ , his clearances allowed him complete run of the holonet entire. A brief search of _Cadet Hux_ returned several entirely innocuous results, but below those: so _many_ images appeared – and far more than just those he’d taken from the lieutenant. While it appeared Mitaka had a very encompassing collection, already Ren could spot several he had apparently not yet found for himself.

One in particular caught his eye. Quite against all reasonable thought Ren found himself enlarging it, even as he told himself he only intended to bring up its accompanying description. This one, it seemed, was a rare sight to be seen printed in flimsi – or so said this anonymous collector. It had been from the beginning something of a limited edition, and one now much sought after. It was even said the Cadet had _signed_ a handful – though if such items _were_ in existence, they were also kept close to the chest of their owners.

All Ren had now was this reproduction upon the holoscreen. The Cadet was seen here from the rear, set against a most unusual background. It mimicked not the industrial scenes of before. Instead it appeared to be actual _forest_ , shadows long in late afternoon light, the system’s sun itself caught in contained sharp burst towards the top of the frame. In this muted colour scheme of greens and pale ochres, the deep dark lines of the trees formed an orderly queue, letting in just enough of that burnished glow to set the true subject quite afire.

And in the foreground, within what almost appeared touching distance of the viewer: the cadet stood alone, one gloved hand resting upon the rustic finish of the fence. Limned in gold, he had dressed in a regulation undershirt, and nothing else. That damned pale skin held uncharacteristic warmth next to the drab grey, the hem just riding up over the swell of his buttocks, legs just slightly parted, leaning just a little forward. His head had turned to the side, eyes to the sky, very blue in even this golden light. Narrowed and watchful, it seemed as though he commanded some unseen fleet. The cap, its Order emblem bright beacon in the sunlight, tilted back over the blaze of his hair, crimson amber scarlet in the sunlight.

Ren stared for a long moment. Then he turned it off – he turned it all off, the holoscreen gone dark, pushing away from the unit in his room, turning instead towards the place where he always gave himself to meditation. He would never look again. He had seen enough. There would never be any need for him to see _that_ , again.

It remained embedded in his memory all the same. It seemed that not even the Force could take this from him now.

 

*****

 

“I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”

Hux quickened his step, for all it did little to throw Kylo Ren off his own stride. “I’m sure it can wait until I have been brought back up to speed on matters pertaining both to the _Finalizer_ and to Starkiller.” Even as he moved his eyes remained fixed upon his datapad, though Ren knew of no-one besides himself who would fail to get out of the man’s path. And Hux’s frown deepened as he jabbed hard at a message that appeared to have deeply displeased him. “Unless _your_ urgent matter has something to do with either one of those?” he asked, sharp, and Ren scowled even deeper than the general himself.

“It doesn’t.” They were coming up quickly upon the bridge, and if Hux reached it, Ren would not be able to drag him away from it again for hours. “It’s still urgent.”

“As I said, however, it can _wait_ —”

“It is to do with _you_.”

That somehow proved enough to bring him to a halt, eyes narrowed, lips pressed far too thin. “ _Myself_.”

Stony in his silence, Ren knew that to remain wordless now would be secure his victory. Indeed, Hux looked down to his datapad, and to what would be the no doubt rigid schedule he’d already carved out for himself there. With lips pressed taut, his face remained otherwise unreadable. But Ren could sense the frustration pouring off him in waves: with the Force to hand, he alone knew that the general who seemed so immutable to his peers and subordinates was in reality a burning brilliant flame just waiting to burst to utter chaos and conflagration.

But Ren seen some of that, in another place. In muted colours and bright scarlet, with his blue eyes a bright and brilliant invitation to drown.

“Very well,” Hux said, abrupt, already turning. “Five minutes, Ren. And then I really must attend to other matters.”

For a moment, Ren forgot how to move. When he remembered, he found himself trailing the other man, unable to quite catch up before Hux disappeared into one of the nearby conference rooms. And although all spaces aboard the star destroyer were close and claustrophobic by design – even such a large ship could only accommodate so many personnel – this one seemed almost cavernous with the two of them together here alone.

“Well, Ren?” Hux actually tapped his foot, the high polish of the leather a sharp _thwack_ against the shining floor. “What is it?”

He didn’t even stop to consider his words. “The lieutenant who acts as your aide-de-camp has a collection of flimsis of you.” When Hux only blinked, he added, far sharper than the vocoder ought to allow, “they border on the pornographic.”

Hux had stilled, though his expression had not altered at all. “Ah.”

In the silence that then stretched between them, like an impossibly voiceless man upon his rack, Ren found Hux did not move to speak at all. “Does this not concern you?” he asked, unable to mask his surprise. In return Hux came suddenly to life, lips curved in something not quite a frown, already reaching again for his datapad.

“They’re hardly _pornographic_. Titillating by design, yes, but tasteful all the same.” Even as he pulled out a chair, took his place at the head of the table, he rolled his eyes skyward. “Unless someone’s been trying to sneak in harder images, passing them off as part of the set. That happens, from time to time. Though I would have thought Mitaka, of all people, would have had a better eye than that for a fake.”

For a moment, Ren thought he had finally gone mad. Finding his voice took far longer than it should have, and it didn’t even entirely feel like his own even when he did. “So they _are_ of you.”

“Yes. It’s common enough knowledge.” He poked at the screen, scowled at whatever came up first. “Although I suppose I’m not surprised _you’ve_ never come across them; I can’t get you to read even _current_ Order propaganda, let alone nonsense from nearly two decades ago.” In the stunned silence that followed, he paused, looked up at last. “Ren?”

Ren had known the general for something close to three years – and he had never felt more the stranger than he did now. “You _allow_ this?”

He clicked his tongue, already looking again to his damned datapad. “I suppose the better word might be _encourage_ , though not overtly. And that wasn’t the original intent of the pictures, besides; we’ll call it a pleasant and unexpected benefit, and leave it at that.” At the small, smothered noise Ren made, he glanced up again; with his head tilted at such faint angle, Hux appeared almost curious. “Is this not to your… _liking_ , Lord Ren?”

“It’s obscene!”

It had been blurted out, and not entirely on purpose. In return Hux blinked; something in his reaction seemed perplexed, as if one of his highly trained soldiers had started dancing a mad jig before him on the parade ground. “They’re hardly as bad as all that – there’s not a cock to be seen in any of them, for starters. And even if there _was_ , it wouldn’t be doing anything else but lying there flaccid and harmless. That was never the point.”

“Then what _was_ the point?”

He hadn’t meant his voice to spiral quite so high. And even as he subsided again, Hux kept that critical eye upon him. When he did speak again, he did so very slow, and very clear. “You have to realise, the accepted unspoken rule about these images is that no-one in the ranks is to bring them to my attention. I am aware of their continued existence and dissemination, but I don’t wish to discuss it with anybody.”

“I’m not in your ranks.”

He hmmed a little, and then he actually shrugged; the padded lines of his coat moved fluid, and smooth, over the narrow shoulders beneath. “I suppose not,” he said, and it was the first time Ren had ever heard Hux say so without the slightest hint of irritation. “Look – it’s a pity that it troubles you so, Ren, but in the end it’s not any of your concern. I suggest you let it go, and continue with your own work. And your five minutes is up.”

But he would not be so easily dismissed upon his own ship. “So you’re happy with that. For people to listen to your actual reams of spoken propaganda, and then wank themselves off afterwards to your younger self in a little cap and nothing else?”

The cheap vulgarity had Hux frowning – and Ren was struck that it didn’t even seem out of place, even when he’d seen the man in such shameless position. But then, this was the _general_ , and for all he so casually implicated himself, Ren could scarcely imagine him the way he’d seen the cadet.

“Well, in all honesty, I’d prefer it if they wanked off to the actual propaganda itself, but apparently I’m the only person on the ship that it has that effect on.” When Ren barely suppressed his choked breath, Hux just rolled his eyes. “You know, Ren, it would be easier for me to make fun of you if you _weren’t_ wearing the helmet.”

“You’re mad,” he said, slow, wondering. Again Hux snorted, and this time pressed the datapad back into one of the many interior pockets of his greatcoat.

“I believe it’s more that you and I simply have never had cause to have a conversation like this before. And I really must be going—”

“Who took them?” Hux paused, and it was enough for Ren to push, “the _pictures_.”

Again his lips pursed – had they ever been as pink as those in said pictures, or had that been some gloss, some rouge? And the gloved fingers moved in slow roll over the desk before, at last, he sighed.

“A particular friend of mine, in the academy. I was, you see, very well known amongst my peers for my skills at oratory and debate.” Something like a smile, too small and bitter to be that in truth, curled against his mouth. “A rival made the comment that a pretty little thing like myself would do just as well wearing my message on a placard and nothing else.”

Ren kept the image to himself, and pretended that it did not burn.

For his part, Hux went airily on, as if he discussed only some new appointment for the continued development of beloved Starkiller. “But the idea amused both my friend and myself. He suggested we take some of these pictures, and we did.” Now the smile did turn genuine, for all it resembled more a bloodied knife blade than some pure expression of joy. “At the end of the final competitive debate of the year, I made my closing statements. And then displayed our favourite of them upon the largest projector in the hall, emblazoned FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. Near brought the house down, as it were.”

His throat should have been too dry for the words that came. “And you won?”

“I was in fact disqualified.” He actually chuckled, pressed back from the table to give Ren an amused look. “I would have won all the same, but it was still worth it because he couldn’t be declared the winner without an opponent. He took a rematch and still lost.” One hand rose, fell, something like an indulgent shrug. “And my friend and I ended up taking more of the holos. Sold them on flimsi, too. It turned out to be rather lucrative. And it drove my father mad, besides.”

For all he thought he might choke on the idea of Hux’s own _father_ having known of this, Ren could not keep his curiosity down. “How has it not hurt your career?”

“Because it’s not spoken of, Ren. It simply _is_.” Still, he tilted his head back and forth, as if some sort of weighing of equal thought. “But you _did_ have a point. People wish to see me exercise my authority. They are comforted by my efficacy and my skill. I am the leader of many.” And he tilted a grin, then. “But occasionally people want the comfort of someone closer. More accessible. More _intimate_.” Now he rolled his eyes, as if quite wearied by the dismal debauchery of it all. “If some saucy little shots of me from my cadet days breed loyalty and affection in both my soldiers and my civilians, who am I to deny them?”

There was almost a hint of wonder to the accusation. “You _are_ mad.”

Hux only snorted, light enough that a less observant person might have missed it. “I admit, it’s hardly similar to your own style. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen you without the helmet.” His eyes narrowed, as sudden as a hunter taking scent of unexpected prey. “Take it off, Ren.”

He stilled, more suspicious than outright surprised. “I thought you said our five minutes was up.”

Long fingers steepled before his too-clever mouth. “I believe I could make time for that.”

Ren had never taken well to being watched – and for all he had tried to burn Ben Organa Solo from his very being, he knew that his distaste for it had come from that life. From being the centre of intense scrutiny from before he even had memory enough of his own. Ben Solo had been the son of heroes; the only offspring of the orphan of Alderaan, the rogue of Corellia. And yet, for all her beauty, for all his rakish good looks – he’d been the anomaly, a gawkish awkward child with freakish power he could not hope to control.

His hands moved slow over the releases beneath the helmet’s jawline; Hux, for his part, barely blinked when Ren set the thing aside. His skin rippled with gooseflesh at the cool touch of recycled air, his lips pressed tight together. “What’s the point of this?” he asked, too quick, already hating the sound of his natural voice. Hux lightly shrugged his shoulders, fingers still pressed almost to his lips.

“Curiosity.” Then, oddly relaxed, he pressed back in the chair and tilted his head once more. In this light, his eyes had turned deeply green. “Which is turnabout, really, because that’s why you came to me about those pictures.” At the beginning of Ren’s fresh scowl, he clicked his tongue, shook his head as though calling a hound to heel. “You still don’t really believe I am the person in them.”

He could not keep the sullen edge from his words. Without the vocoder, he was at the mercy of his own flat baritone. “I _know_ it’s you.”

“But you don’t really _believe_ it,” Hux returned, his Imperial accent smooth and precise. “It’s a different thing, entirely.”

Grinding his teeth together might have done something for the coiling, sharp energy he could feel crackling beneath his skin, but Ren kept it to himself. “I look at the general sitting across from me,” he said instead, “and I do not see a cadet in cap and boots and nothing else.”

“Which is how it should be, really. That’s the power of it.” One long finger moved to his chin, tapped there once, twice. And then his hand moved sudden to the table, open-palmed and still. “I do have to go now, Ren, but I’ll give you this: come to my quarters, tonight. I’ll comm you just before I expect to arrive back, which will be late.”

As Hux pressed himself upward, Ren found himself too startled to match the motion. “Why would I want to come to your quarters?”

“This is bothering you. I haven’t the time to explain it properly, and I won’t do it here.” Brushing out the already smooth lines of his greatcoat, he passed a hand back over his hair without touching it at all, and reached for his datapad. “Come, or don’t come. It doesn’t matter to me.” He was almost to the door when he added, airy and cool, “I’ll let you decide if it still matters to you.”

With the door then closed between Ren and the rest of the damned ship, he sat alone. The helmet went back on, for all its curves and lines felt too close, too near. Pushing to his feet with an unvoiced snarl, he moved away from Hux’s domain to return to his own. In his quarters, and in his training rooms, he could give himself over to meditation and physicality: the structural basics of his day. He had always been able to lose himself in both. He would not be beholden to the remembered images in his head.

No, he had something new, now. As he stripped down to his trousers, helmet cast aisde, he could not help but remember the hour before. When he had shed his helmet, looked upon the thoughtful general, the faint smirk, his brilliant bright hair. There had been, so briefly, no filters between them – save, perhaps, for that uniform. But Ren had seen something of what lay beneath.

 _I need to see nothing else_.

Igniting his saber, Ren let it all go with a roar, and gave himself instead to the Dark, and to the power that had always been only his alone.

 

*****

 

“You didn’t reply to the message I sent.” And how strange it was to see him lean upon the doorframe this way, arms crossed indolent over his chest, expression curious rather than orderly. “I’d thought you’d decided not to come.”

“I’m here now.”

Hux blinked, just once. And then those eyes – a smoky grey-blue in the harsh white light of the Finalizer’s corridors – swept upwards to the crown of his head, then slowly down, taking in apparent areas of interest along the way. Then it came up again, his expression entirely thoughtful. “So I see,” he said, careful, almost too slow. Just as suddenly he pushed himself up straight, already turning to the interior with his usual quick efficiency. “Come in, then.”

This strange performance was made only all the more so by the fact that _anyone_ might have seen it, for all the general’s quarters enjoyed more privacy than most. But the corridors appeared deserted as Ren cast one last look over them, and then stepped inside. As the door hissed closed behind him, he felt his brow furrow. Even with only so terse an examination, they appeared quite different to his own quarters – those were situated much deeper into the ship, well-shielded from noise both organic and mechanical. And they had no windows at all.

Hux’s quarters, at least this outer part, _did_ have a large viewport; the thick transparisteel had been divided by frames in the trapezoid structure common to all other areas of the ship, including the bridge. Ren supposed there would be blast shutters that would be closed during any attack, but still struck him as unusual. At this angle, he could see something of the great ship below, but nothing of Starkiller. All that remained were the stars of this distant system, and the void in which all was suspended.

Hux had crossed the room, long legs moving in quick stride; its unusual size, while not overly generous, was certainly more than almost all others would be permitted upon the star destroyer. Presumably he had been granted such that he might entertain high ranking guests. It also appeared his sleeping quarters were quite separate, shuttered away by an innocuous door. Hux paid it no heed, moved instead to a small alcove, where he began to busy himself about a small array of glasses and bottles.

“Will you have a drink?”

Ren spoke too short, perhaps. “I don’t drink.”

He half-turned, his surprise a smooth and simple thing. “Not even water?”

“Hux.” He had never taken to mockery well; he could taste ozone upon the air, and knew Hux could too. “Why am I here?”

With a steady hand, Hux poured a careful measure of some amber liquid; even from such distance, Ren could taste the woody notes of it. But he did not recognise it. For all his erstwhile father’s predilections, he’d never bothered to learn their names, nor their flavours.

“I suspect I know why this is bothering you so,” Hux said, at last. Ren only watched as he crossed the room, paused before the long couch spread low before the viewport.

“I did not say it was bothering me.”

Setting down the untouched glass upon a side table, Hux turned back with arms folded across his chest. “You didn’t have to,” he said, and he nodded to the low drawer beneath said table. “I only wanted to show it to you.”

“I’ve already seen all of them,” he snapped, and he _knew_ this time he’d spoken too quick. But Hux only allowed himself an arched eyebrow, dropping down to the couch so he might flick the lock, pulling free the drawer.

“You’re certain of that?” Again, a hint of that rather over-inflated ego. “I know Mitaka is a particularly _avid_ collector, but—”

“ _General_.”

He appeared to take the point, or at least he paused. “Ren,” he said, even enough. Then he was reaching over, retrieving the only item within the drawer. When he raised his hands, Ren found there a holo camera – a military unit, small and compact. But already Hux was setting it down, rising again to his feet. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Even as he slipped away, Ren could not resist reaching forward; he’d always bitterly figured that tendency to be a by-product of his unfortunate paternal genes, this instinct to never turn away from the valuing of something left in his vicinity. But even as he turned it over in his hands, he heard this time the slow, soft pad of bare feet. When he glanced up, all sound died.

Hux stood before him, dressed in his greatcoat. But from the flash of ankle and the smooth white skin of his feet below, and his hands very the same, Ren suspected he did not wear much else. But of course, his damnable cap remained, carefully set upon his bright hair.

“What is this?”

Moving upon light feet, Hux seemed not at all perturbed by the strangled quality of Ren’s voice. “You wanted to see it for yourself. And the pictures weren’t enough.” With head tilted, eyes narrowed, he seemed to be examining something; perhaps, Ren thought dumbly, the quality of the light, though Hux’s rooms were not so much softer in ambience than the rest of the ship beyond that locked door. Then he stepped back, towards the window. “You’re a practical person, Ren. You learn by doing, not listening.” His lips quirked, not entirely with good humour, when he nodded towards the device in Ren’s still hands. “And it seems I’m willing to teach you a little lesson here tonight. You’d do well to take advantage of the offer.”

“Hux.” Just a single word – and Ren himself could not be sure if it were more a warning or a question. Hux only shrugged in answer, apparently willing to take it as both.

“I _do_ get something out of it myself, you know.” One hand rose, plucked light at the collar of his coat, as if the faint chill of the room had somehow changed instead to bright heat. “It’s been rather a long time since I last did this.”

Ren’s hands moved clumsy over the camera as he moved backward, into the place of the observer. But as he took his place upon his imagined stage, Hux by contrast proved smooth and almost liquid in his grace. From the beginning, Ren had had nothing but trouble reconciling the cadet with the general. Here and now, the two realities had begun to blur and blend; the strange synergy of it prickled over and under his skin. This was the power of both come together, and made so much the stronger for it.

Hux, still standing before the low couch, arched a brow. “So?”

A shuddering click was all he managed. Ren didn’t need to look to know it would be out of focus, the work of a rank amateur. But while this had never been a particular skill of his, Ren knew that he could do better. And so he took another, and then again; with each new shot, he began to gain something of an understanding of the lighting, for all Hux only stood at something close to parade rest, very nearly regal save for the bare feet, the pale long-fingered hands held light at his sides.

Without warning, one hand delved into a pocket before hitching back to rest over a hip. Ren choked upon the sight, the long line of skin revealed from collarbone to ankle. But Hux knew his angle, and his audience; in this both Ren and the camera were given nothing but smooth whiteness, the juncture of his thighs still masked beneath the other panel. And when at last Ren dragged his gaze away and upward, it was to be pinned down by the watchful amusement of Hux’s bright blue eyes.

“We’ve begun.” Sharp, quick, it came so very much like an order. “ _Do_ keep up, Ren.”

But for all Ren knew what Hux required of him – even without the benefit of the Force, he might have divined it easily enough – Ren still stumbled over every movement. Such struggle felt so very strange; he’d always been quick to master the physical when young, and his outsized and overlong body had always meant few could keep up with him. He had never become accustomed to being the one left behind.

It did not help matters that his breathing now came heavier than it ought, as though Ren were winded, for all he barely moved. Before him, Hux seemed quite serene, gliding through a dozen different poses as though each were some ancient body memory, a series of katas far beyond the academic forms Kylo Ren had long ago learned. But in this, he had moved far beyond the teachings of his youth, or even those under Snoke.

Instead he learned here of lessons unspoken, guided only by the greatcoat shifting over legs and shoulders. Hux now made true use of the low couch set before the window, first reclining on his back, long legs bare and raised; then he rose again, leaning ever forward with one shoulder slipping down to show the long lines of collarbone, one pink stiff nipple; then he lay upon his stomach, one side of the coat stripped away to reveal the long curve of thigh and rear.

In the odd light of his quarters, Hux’s skin had become silvered, as if transmuted by strange alchemy. His hair, while often masked by the cap, could not always remain so; its bright crimson flame renewed every time the angle changed just enough to let it burn. Strangely, Hux appeared relatively hairless otherwise – or at least it was pale enough to be largely unnoticeable. There was no trail of bright hair from navel to groin, from what Ren could ascertain. And he knew he should not be curious about such things. These were not matters a knight of Ren would much concern himself with.

But Hux allowed him no escape. Always his eyes remained upon him, and while Hux kept his silence, those bright eyes shouted his challenge – he was the one half-stripped to nothing, and yet his gaze flayed the fully clothed Ren clean to the bone. The knowing little smile, and the way he looked down his nose at Ren even when upon his own knees – both burned Ren deep with the urge to stride forward, to strip the coat away, to see what _really_ lay beneath. To lay him out bare and _know_ the general, completely.

But, like the cadet, even the general remained always just out of reach. And out of hand, besides. As he turned to face the windows, a strange little curling ember lit itself deep inside Ren’s too-tight abdomen; something in the chosen pose echoed that of the unknown forest. But this was only fake silver, and not true gold. And all around him arched a sea of stars, shimmering almost too bright, and too strange.

With a careless shrug of shoulders, the coat slipped down his arms, halted at the elbows. The exposed curve of his spine struck against Ren’s mind like a sharpened blade, and his shutter finger moved again and again – it was too many, and too obvious. And Hux still smiled, face nearly in profile, eyes darkening by the moment, to match the darkness that lay before him.

“That’s enough.”

Ren clicked over three more times before the words registered. “What?”

Like a statue carved from marble, Hux remained still, save for where his lips curled ever further upwards. “No more,” he said, too light, ice upon deep open ocean. “Put the camera down. On the floor.”

Kylo Ren answered to no general. And yet he did so now without second thought. A faint chuckle, and: the coat slipped utterly away, leaving Hux bare before him. But even as Ren stared, struck silent and still, Hux was turning, moving, sauntering across the room.

“Pick that up, won’t you?” he called back, quick and careless. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

The door slid closed at his back, leaving Ren alone, and aching. Without conscious thought he moved forward, gathered the coat. A moment passed, too quick and too sharp – and then it was pressed to his lips, his nose. The scent of him, astringent and bright, could only be too much, his mind dizzied, desire wrapped around his heart as a tightening chain. And there, half-hunched upon the floor, Ren became abruptly aware of the harsh pulsing heat deep in his groin.

Only with difficulty did he lever himself upward, hands like claws about the damned gaberwool. He folded it with no grace; even the cadet would have sneered at such work. Gloved fingers, clumsy and slow, traced out the silver lines of the general’s rank, bright upon the dark sleeve. And though he then turned to stare blindly out beyond the transparisteel, his knew his own eyes to be full of stars.

A light weight pressing down the couch at his side told him of Hux’s return; Ren had not even heard him come in. As he turned, stiff and awkward, Hux did not even glance upward in acknowledgment. Instead his eyes remained upon the camera, and its small viewing screen. Ren himself could only stare as Hux began to flick through a seemingly endless stream of images of his own self.

And then, one after the other – Hux began to delete each and every one. Ren spoke too late for it to matter, strained and hoarse.

“What are you _doing_?”

Hux snorted, light and uncaring. “It was the taking of them that mattered.” And Ren found he could not look away now from that bright head, bent over his work with a faint frown turning his lips ever downward. Hux had not reordered himself as he might have before. His hair, soft and in danger of falling in his eyes, almost masked his expression. He’d not even returned to his uniform, dressed now in the soft trousers and long-sleeved shirt usually reserved for earliest phases of the Order’s physical training.

“What colour are your eyes?”

That actually disturbed his work; when Hux looked up, his expression hovered somewhere between surprised and put out. “Can’t you tell?”

“No.” The words were nothing if not entirely honest. “Sometimes they’re blue, and sometimes they’re green.”

“Yours are almost black.” Though Hux appeared somewhat surprised he’d said a thing, he frowned quick enough to mask it. A moment passed, and then he wore instead the same expression Ren had seen him turn upon schematics and technical comms messages as he added, sudden, “It’s fascinating.”

There was little else he could do but look away, his ears burning, lips twisted. Hux himself returned his attention to the camera, and the sharp little display. When Ren followed that gaze, he found there remained just one picture. It had been one of the very last: at its heart lay the long sinuous curve of a bared spine, its slow descent teasing down to the faintest hint of the buttocks beneath. The dark curving pool of the lowered greatcoat masked the true swell of that smooth skin, but what mattered was this instead: Hux’s face in almost complete profile, eyelids lowered, eyes laser-bright, watchful, with the hint of a smirk to his pinkened lips.

And as Ren only watched, Hux’s careful fingers went about their work. A message, sent, and Ren cleared his throat, found his voice distant and strange as sudden exile.

“What are you doing?”

He set the camera aside, careless as his words. “You can keep that one.” The subsequent snort veered dangerously close to a chuckle. “Think of it as a gift.”

In the world from which he had been born from, one would say thank you. But Kylo Ren had long forgotten how to do so. And there was something almost pitying, now, in Hux’s watchful eyes.

“It’s time for you to go.” It, too, had turned almost gentle: that searching gaze, the low-voiced words. “But I’ll see you at the same time next week, yes?”

His body jolted as if Hux had passed a sharp electrical current down the ladder of his spine. “We’re doing this again?”

His eyelashes fluttered in something not quite a blink, the very picture of coy innocence. “Turnabout’s fair play, yes?”

The chill that marched over his skin, covered and closed off though it was, reached far deeper than even the cruellest of Starkiller’s frozen nights. “You expect _me_ …”

“Of course.” Brushing non-existent dust from one thigh, Hux added a one-shouldered shrug to match. “It’s the only way you’ll know.”

“Know _what_?”

And his hand moved, too close – but Ren did not stop its slow, steady caress over the ragged edges of his cowl. “Who is underneath all _this_.” With a grin utterly at odds with the general who stalked the bridge, Hux pushed upwards and away from the couch. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to dump the results on the ship’s intranet. I don’t think the Order’s quite ready for _that_.” Taking up the drink he’d poured earlier, and never tasted, he tilted it towards Ren as if in toast. “This is entirely for your own benefit.”

Ren only watched as Hux’s head tilted far further back than necessary, long throat working as he took the drink entire in three fierce swallows. “And what if I don’t want to?”

When he lowered his gaze, again, the bright hair had fallen across his eyes; it was quite impossible now to tell their colour. “Oh, you _want_ to,” he drawled, and abandoned the glass upon the tiny counter. “Show yourself out, won’t you? I’m for my bed.”

Ren stared at the dirty glass as Hux sauntered away. He could have been grateful he didn’t have to rise, given the aching hardness in his groin. But as Hux closed the door to his sleeping quarters, the firm click and beep of the lock falling closed, Ren thought bitterly that Hux had known of his dire straits all along.

But even that knowledge could not stop Ren from retrieving his comm from the slim pocket in which it resided, activating the projection mode with one clumsy thumb. A scarce moment, and there it flickered into sudden strange life: the picture of Hux, taken but moments before. Somehow the camera it had rendered him almost beyond _lovely_ , the dark hard exterior of the general slipping down the slim slender lines of his spine. In this he was order, and he was desire – and Ren, at the mercy of chaos and denial, had been brought almost to ruin.

His other hand moved without thought to consequence, or basic decency; Ren knew it to be obscene, that he should sit here with the heel of one hand pressed to the hard root of his cock, on the man’s own couch. A low groan escaped a constricted throat, his cock twitching hard, the damp heat of his underclothes too tight, and yet not enough. Never enough.

Ren closed his eyes. A long count, and then he blindly rose, turning towards a door he could not even see. The comm returned to his pocket, soft vibration as it quietened to darkness. Only then did Ren open his eyes, and the door. He only moved forward after that.

He was never coming back again.

 

*****

 

“You can have some choice in this, of course,” Hux said, reclining upon the couch with a faint frown, “but I _do_ rather think your own robes are inappropriate.”

Petulant in his standing posture, Ren’s own scowl could have put that of a military brat to purest shame. “Well, _your_ greatcoat won’t fit me.”

“More’s the pity,” he said, almost soft; the amusement in the tilt of his eyebrow sent a shiver over Ren’s skin, like the brush of unseen fingers. Something in Ren’s expression had Hux chuckling, passing a hand back through his hair. “I’ve never seen you in a proper uniform,” he added, offhand, eyes slipping down the layers that shrouded the body beneath. “…it might even suit you.”

Hux pressed to his feet, then – and then he was standing close, _too_ close. Ren kept his eyes forward, for all it did nothing to change what he wanted. While Ren had not looked again at the picture since the evening he had taken it, he’d been utterly incapable of pushing it from his mind. And though their paths had crossed rarely in the week since, when in the general’s vicinity Ren had been struck always by the urge to reach out, to _touch_. But he never did. It would have been perfectly inadequate, even had he dared. His own gloves, and the ordered layers that Hux wore – both would stymie his true desire. Ren wanted skin on skin, and nothing more. But in those moments Hux had been always the General. What lay beneath had not been his to take. Not then.

And now Hux was sauntering away, opening a small cabinet with laconic grace. “I did get you this. It might do.”

At first, given its neat folds, Ren could make out only that it was some sort of robe – and dark in colour, at least. But when Hux shook it out, his abdomen twisted, the taste of bile high and harsh in his throat. He recognised all too well the cut of a Jedi’s traditional outer robe.

Hux caught him staring, one eyebrow tilted high. Even with something as potent and preternatural as Ren’s fury simmering upon the very air between them, he appeared nothing if not calm, and very nearly curious.

“It’s about what is beneath, Ren,” he said, perfectly mild. “Of who we are, and who we were.” One hand smoothed over the thickened collar, eyes half-hooded as they traced the fine, nearly invisible embroidery there. “And there are so many things, that we are all yet to be.”

He should have said no. He still could have. And yet Ren blundered forward, almost snatching the damned thing from Hux’s opened grip. “I can’t change with you—”

A hand waved in the direction of the door Ren had not seen beyond, during their first time here together. “Go into my room. Or the ‘fresher, it’s straight through there.”

With the door closed behind him, between them, Ren could not stop himself from staring. It was an innocuous, nearly anonymous room; its main feature was a neatly made bed, with tight corners and a tautly smoothed coverlet. It did seem peculiar in the fact it was not a single size, but rather a generous double. And it was all too easy to imagine _him_ upon it, _in_ it: undone and uninhibited, the uniform pulled away and his hair raked back in blazing disorder. He would wear such a teasing grin, his body curved that nothing could be seen but everything was revealed. A beckoning finger would be invitation enough—

Ren pushed through into the ‘fresher, slamming his hand down upon the doorlock. Ignoring the fine hairline crack such force had left, he made quick enough work of stripping himself down, then re-wrapping himself in the damned robe. But when he glanced up, catching his own reflection, Ren found himself shivering for all it was not truly cold. In the beginning he had thought Hux mad. But then Ren himself was the one who had come back.

And when he returned to the outer room it was to find Hux standing, waiting, camera again in hand.

“Shall we begin?”

He shifted, uneasy in his own skin, for all the robe burned in every place it shielded it from those knowing bright eyes. “How do you want me?” he asked, too rough, nearly accusing. Hux’x index finger lightly circled the shutter, and he smiled.

“I’ll decide as we go along.” His eyes took on a silvered sheen as he came close, teeth only just masked beneath his smile. “Let me show you.”

His hands were terribly quick in their manipulation – but then, Ren had known early on that Hux had considerable expertise in matters of engineering and construction. It had been but one of the reasons Snoke had given him Starkiller, after all.

And some part of him wondered if those same reasons had anything to do with how the man could now so easily guide Kylo Ren himself. But there was nothing rough in his work, no shadow of their many and varied arguments as taken upon the bridge, or the hollowed-out planet itself. Hux moved only with quick purpose, a man born to see his desires through to their very ends.

The camera itself proved to be almost as an extension of his own wandering hands. Hems were raised, collars opened and closed, legs coaxed out, and a chest put on display. Throughout each fresh pose, each changed perspective, Ren felt his cheeks grow more heated, his brow so damp with sweat his eyes stung with sharp salt.

 And yet Hux never took a picture of his face. In fact his eyes barely looked to Ren’s own; all he had left was the murmurs of surprise and approval as Hux excavated the body beneath the gifted robe. Gloved fingers skated over revealed skin, one splayed hand to his ribs, holding them upon a sharply caught breath. Then, those quick fingers encouraged a nipple to hardness; even as Ren barely withheld a gasp, Hux’s own teeth caught upon his lip, tilting his head, thoughtful in his framing.

With but the barest force Hux shifted Ren back upon the couch, one half of the robe pressed aside even as the belt remained tight; thoughtful fingers trailed the dark hair that travelled long over his abdomen, a blunt fingernail catching upon the rim of a taut navel. Then, a gloved thumbpad pressed to the divot of a hip; even as Ren fought the urge to jerk forward, to seek out more of that touch, Hus used a palm to guide him over to his stomach, fingertips ghosting so very light over the curve of one buttock.

When Hux eventually pressed him up, again, Ren followed as if dreaming while yet awake. Still somewhere in that dreamscape, he scarcely noticed when Hux’s quick fingers moved to undo the belt, even as he turned him to the window. The camera had barely returned to his hand when Hux stripped the robe entirely away.

“I—”

“Stop. Hold. Just there.” The click came again, so like the snap of a falling guillotine – but Ren did not move, burning, shamed in his nakedness even if all Hux could see was his back. And yet he did not move, did not retreat: instead he hunched forward upon himself, a movement reflexive and utterly without thought. With eyes closed tight, against his reflection, against the stars, Ren pushed all thought aside.

The hand on his shoulder, bare and warm, called him back. “Ren.” And Hux sighed, the breath tickling along the dark hair curling about his too-quick pulse. “Pick up the robe, and hold it low. Turn back to me.”

Already he shifted back – and when Ren bent down, stiff and uncertain, he heard once more that damned sharp click. Turning, he found Hux’s face had again disappeared behind the device, gloved fingers back in their assigned place. The shame and the misery and the – the _pleasure_ of it all, had him closing his eyes again. It only heightened the sensation of it, the drag of roughspun wool over the sensitive skin of his cock. While Ren had never known Hux to have the slightest inclination towards the Force, the strange satisfaction of his chuckle had Ren opening his eyes. Such action only revealed Hux lowering the camera, pupils dilated, smirk firmly in place.

“I suppose I realised there must be _something_ like this under all that,” he said, voice low soft pulse. “It’s still quite remarkable to see it this way.” Again, something of the general had crept back into his words when he added, “Turn around, and put it back on.”

More clicks, too many for Ren to truly count. The soft leather of a gloved hand closed about his wrist, and Hux again guided him down upon the couch. As Ren lay back, eyes stiff upon the ceiling above, Hux paused. Then, he snorted.

“This could be interesting.” But already he raised the camera again, though within moments the couch bowed beneath his slight weight, even as he huffed out an exasperated breath. “Oh, for kriff’s _sake_ , Ren,” he said, halfway between irritation and something terribly close to _delight_. “This is supposed to be entirely softcore, and with _this_ monstrous thing getting in frame every second shot, we’re just going far too hard for the intended audience.” Flicking his fingertips over it, Hux rolled his eyes at Ren’s gasp. “Pun not entirely intended, by the way.”

“ _Hux_ —”

“Hush, a minute.” When Ren turned his eyes upon him, Hux’s own gaze had taken on that thoughtful tilt, again. “Stay there, and stay very still. Don’t _move_. I mean it, Ren.”

As Hux padded away, the camera quite abandoned upon the low table, Ren turned his eyes again to the stars. Against their brightness, he closed them again. Each breath came as a ragged and raw thing, chest tighter than even his aching cock. He could recall no other time when he’d felt such arousal. Snoke had never denied him access to such outlet, though Ren had rarely enough indulged. Something in the wildness of such passion had only reminded him of stories told from early childhood – of stubborn princesses and charming rogues, of those slaved to their desires and the disasters that they would bring.

But the memory of those gloved fingers over his cock had his hips moving, canting forward into some invisible touch. The weight, again, bowed the couch at his side. A bare hand closed over his cock, slick and warm. His eyes burst open, mouth opened upon a single word.

“ _Hux_ —”

The man stared evenly back. And Ren had nothing more to say, for Hux had come to him here and now, and completely naked. Without words, with only those bright eyes upon him, Hux rose, his own cock pressed flushed and hard against his stomach. Ren could say nothing, do nothing as Hux pushed back, one hand braced upon Ren’s chest as the other guided him into his loosened hole. Taking him inside in one slow shift, his face caught itself somewhere between agony and ecstasy.

“It’s monstrous, is what it is,” he murmured, and for a terrible moment, Ren thought he might _laugh._

“Hux…”

“Shut up,” he replied, quick but not unkind. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Right from the start?”

Ren had no answer for that. He only watched as Hux leaned backward, braced upon his own hands as he began to move – first up, and then decisively down. Slow, at first, and then: _quick_. Arching his back, Ren allowed his own eyes to fall closed. His own hips began a slow press upward when Hux paused. A moment later, and the sharp click had his eyes opening, mouth twisted to a scowl. And yet when he opened his eyes, Ren found Hux focused not upon his body. The lens now pointed only towards his _face_.

“Stop!”

“But you’re fascinating, like this.” Hux paused now in what had been relentless rise and fall, and clenched hard about Ren’s cock. Gasping, grinding teeth, Ren knew he could push the man away, could walk free of all this. And yet he did not move even as Hux now began to shift his hips in a slow circle, taking his traitorous cock far too deep indeed. Still he smirked, camera raised for another picture. It trembled first, between those sure and steady hands. And then: it flew, away and across the room.

Hux followed its trajectory with his lips twisted to near frown. “That’s hardly fair.” And he turned back, already bracing himself upon Ren’s flushed and damp chest. “I’m going to have to get up and go get it now, you realise?”

With hands on his hips, Ren held him still. He had no idea what this truly was. But it didn’t matter anymore, not as he sat up and dragged the protesting man close, arms manacled around his waist, face buried in his neck. There, Ren thrust up, short and arrhythmic and terribly earnestly _fierce_. Hux, trembling in his arms, made a sound something like laughter. Ren kept on regardless. Soon enough,  warmth bloomed between them; with it Ren could taste a feeling of rich, rapid satisfaction. Driving up into that clenching heat, he found nothing of the same for himself; Hux had begun to pull back, long limbs already satiated with laziness, even as his cock spurted again.

And Ren scowled. “Stand up.”

“Be a gentlemen, Ren, I’ve just come.” Hux didn’t even entirely affect the yawn that followed. “I need a minute.”

Within seconds Ren had him pressed up against the viewport, his ass tilted willingly back even as his too-quick tongue voiced new protest. Ren ignored it, his hands rough over the swell of it: silver skin, so soft in this, the already opened invitation. With blunt fingers, he pressed him open, paused to watch Hux part around him: flushed and wet, the muscles shifted, waiting, yearning.

He moved slow as he pushed in again. Hux, with a most put-upon sigh, glanced over his shoulder as if quite inconvenienced by the entire matter. But as their gazes locked, he made no motion to pull away. Instead he pressed back as Ren moved forward, slow, certain, the stars dizzying and deep before them both.

His orgasm rose up over him slow, like a late arriving tide. It gave Ren no real indication of when it even began. The only true constant that remained was Hux’s eyes: and they changed, again and again. Blue, like the tropical shallows of ruined Scarif; green, like the deep turbulent seas of distant Arkanis; violent and endless like the white-water rapids of the waterfalls of forbidden Naboo. Taken under by all, Ren felt himself to be drowning, gasping for breath as if lost to the desert sands of cursed Tattoine.

When it was done, Ren lay upon his back. Hux had spread himself languid over Ren’s body, as if he were the flayed pelt of some animal thrown careless over his furniture – some trophy of a hunt long since won. The damned camera had somehow made its way back into his hands, though Ren had no memory of Hux rising to retrieve it. And he angled it just enough that Ren could watch as every single one of his own pictures, one by one, were deleted. It was something like insult, but far deeper and more insidious burned the sharp hurt of inadequacy.

“Don’t you want to keep even one?” he asked, hearing the hint of whine to it and hating himself. Hux didn’t even look up, fingers quick to the end. Only when the datachip read _EMPTY_ did Hux glance up, his eyes caught somewhere between pity and fierce amusement.

“Oh, Ren. _Really_. Why would I?” And he tossed the camera aside with a carelessness so alien to his military sense, already rising to straddle his waist, rolling his hips. “It seems pointless, considering I can have the real thing _any time I want_.”

It seemed almost too easy to turn the tables upon him, to take that slim strong body between his own hands and thrust him down upon his back. But Ren needed no Force to overpower him, for Hux went only willingly, thighs falling open even as Ren insinuated himself  between them. Even as their hips pressed tight together, his cock already fresh stoked heat, Hux again yawned, shifting so that the bright corona of his hair shifted about him as a halo.

“Fair enough,” Ren said, and found that with bruising pressure, he could almost span the circumference of Hux’s waist. “But I’m still removing every inch of the Cadet from the holonet.”

“Oh, my,” Hux said, lightly mocking as he squirmed away from Ren’s tightening grip, “the prodigal knight doesn’t like to share, I see?”

He pressed deeper, a cinching strength that actually had Hux gasping – and his cock twitched hard against Ren’s own abdomen. “Why should I, when every inch of this is now _mine_?”

And Hux pressed down, hard, against his grip. “I think you’ll find I belong to no-one but myself, Ren.”

He let go – but only because those hands had somewhere far better to be. The fingers of his right hand, blunt and thick, pressed deep into his ass, even as the left moved to stroke him again to full hardness. Hux could not control this gasp, either, back arching, his eyes gone hazy and wondering.

“Every man has his price,” Ren observed, almost too quiet. Of course Hux heard, eyes sharpening for all their pupils had blown so very wide.

“You think can afford mine?”

One finger traced low over the place where his pulse beat so very quick, and Ren only smiled. “I think I’ve already paid your toll.” Before Hux could think to complain Ren leaned down, took his lips, and whatever he might have said with them.

In truth, he did not know what this really was, this long strange game that Hux had apparently chosen to play with him. But for now, Ren found himself more than willing to pay the price of admission – if only just one more time.

But he already knew they still had a thousand or more pictures yet to take.


End file.
